The Force of Darkness: Incentive
by Nymph Du Pave
Summary: Dark Batman POV [is there any other worthwhile?]. An introspective view on what Batman is and does. A little bit of why. A tiny bit rough in the content, but something kids who read the Dark Knight series can easily handle.


TITLE: Incentive   
SERIES: The Force of Darkness   
AUTHOR: Nymph Du Pave   
FANDOM: Justice League   
RATING:   
SUMMARY: Serious Batman introspection.   
DISCLAIMER: Batman and The Justice League are not mine. I am merely writing a little of my piff-poff to gain a bit of knowledge, attention, and fun. No copyright infringement intended.   
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Though 'Batman Forever' afforded my blossoming crush on Val Kilmer a chance to _really_ boom, I've never really seen Batman as the colorful, cartoonish mesh that the movie was. And DON'T even get me started on 'Batman and Robin'. That didn't even do the duos relationship justice. I've always been partial to the first two [BLESS Tim Burton's genius heart] and the 'Dark Knight' series.   
FEEDBACK: Hope you like it. Kinda dark. Delivered something that I needed and I feel more than one of these babies comin' on.   
AUTHOR'S EMAIL: nymph_du_pave@hotmail.com 

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**The Force of Darkness 1 - Incentive**   
**by Nymph Du Pave**

You see yourself as they sometimes do: an ascetic player, knowledgeable in the ways of the solitary hunter. But you- unlike your charges- aren't afraid to admit to yourself that you're out for blood tonight. You're always out for blood and you've lately found that you no longer cringe when submitting others to the darker side of this nature. 

Those subjected to this ragged and torn inner-being of yours are always the prey; men doing Justice- and the ideals of such- wrong. How many of them still think they can do you in? You're not sure, but it gives you a purpose to live. Life's mercy and curse is a reason to keep going. 

_Incentive_, you think absently. _Incentive_. 

Vengeance is your key word, has been for years. Not just a single key word selected out of a list of many such gallant pledges, but the epitome of what you are. It is your appellation, your constitution. Your epitaph on the eternal monument you know they will someday erect in your honor. 

But then that's _someday_ and you never allow yourself to think of that and then. It's always been this and now. Which is why thirty-two years have felt more like sixty-eight. 

If you ever revealed your true thoughts, let the light shine upon the things too dark even for the shadows, the people of Gotham would no doubt shun you. They'd see the mangled child inside the grown man, helpless and damned, and instead of lowering their eyes in sympathy, in_ pity_, they'd sneer in disgust. They'd shout and holler and send you back to your cave. Your hole. 

Many already glance upon you and your inclination towards the enigmatic reticent way of life with judgement, but most see this with a sort of saddened awe. Those know their protector is dismal, his heart dingy with the soot of a warped life and a biased view. They just pray that your bias is slanted towards them and not away. They pray that you continue to protect them, keep them warm and soft. They fear the day the cushions are ripped from beneath their pampered little bottoms and they are sent into the cold, wet street. And they know it's coming. 

You worry so much. If they ever saw your vulnerabilities… If they knew that even a superhero- as they've called you in the rags- laments over lost chances, over broken links in the chain… 

Sometimes your worst fear isn't them finding out who you are. Instead it's of them finding out _what_ you are. That's why you do so much as Bruce Wayne, maybe. To make up for what you are now. In your _real_ life. 

It used to be the other way around. The black tights and cape to be the champion; the aloof billionaire was the man you were hiding from. Now man behind the money is running scared and the indulgence in bloodthirsty paths has made the gentleman of nighttime chivalry into something scary, something twisted and deformed. The lost and confused antihero, afraid not of what he dreams, but what he doesn't see during the nocturnal hours. 

Peace. Calm. A worldwide second where a solution has been enough. 

Then again, it's just more incentive to keep you going. Even though you do want to die, a part of you is chilled with the bitter fear of what the end might bring, and that second of armistice might just stop the vital pulse at the marrow of your existence. 

A sole austere eremite is the bland and sweet way to look at it. The more romantic notion. A nighttime warrior soiled with the sheets of his own layer, of his own _home_, and you fight so hard to keep Gothamites from slipping beneath those same silky linens. 

The satin looks so tempting after hard, unsuccessful days, when all a person has planted has been uprooted, when everything they've worked for is not good enough and the _suitable _goals for the_ privileged_ grow more and more out of their reach. No matter how far their hopeful hands reach, most fingers will do nothing but graze the Arcadia they dream of. Their reverie is a painful and dangerous self-deception, but you understand because it's all about incentive, and without incentive, there is nothing. 

When they finally give in and slide across that seductive glossy bedding, they notice that the layers aren't as thick as they thought. Slime and grease and dirt underneath cakes their pretty little feet and they cry, but the tears freeze with the wind in an otherwise inert landscape. They're somewhere different now, and they can never get back to Kansas. Some of that dirt, you've learned, can never come off. 

Such is the life of crime. For whatever reason a person chooses, it is a choice made because of stimulus. A catalyst. 

Incentive. 

Sometimes it can be horribly deceptive, but "deception" is a lesson for another day, another night. 

It's truly best to stick to the well-worn cotton that hundreds of wash cycles have softened, thinned. There a innocent can pray for better and hope that someday they'll actually believe it will come. They might have something to look forward to. Most are just seducing themselves into rose-colored glasses, but they seem happy with their mendacity and it's always better than the green on the other side. The grass in Gotham is always dirty, but one flank is littered with a worker's grime and the other, a criminal's blood. 

You make sure of that. It's your motive. That single red splash, the silent scream of a madman's loss, and now there's one less evildoer on your streets. One more body for the morgue. 

The morgue and the cemetery. The housings you know best. They hold the results of your work, the statistics of your enterprise. The casualties of life that happened to clash with your incentive. 

What's seen in the cooling eyes of a decaying body lying in the gutter? You never look because you fear you'll see yourself in those orbs. You fear the thing that keeps you fighting is the same entity that has sent the last mesh of flesh and organs to a life of offense and misdeed. 

Anger. Fear. Bloodthirst. 

Vengeance. 

It's a common incentive.   
  
  
  
  
  
  


**FIN**


End file.
